


i follow rivers

by frankie_31



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: F/M, Implied incest/sexual abuse - Freeform, M/M, Multi, Witch AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-16 04:04:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14156304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankie_31/pseuds/frankie_31
Summary: Quentin’s been riding past the old Hanson house all school year. He’s 17, he has nothing to do and the mysterious girl on the porch seems to hold answers to questions he never knew to ask. What is she hiding in the house? Who is she hiding?





	1. The Girl on the Porch

The girl is on the porch again. 

He’s been watching her all school year. She’s old money, descendant of some town founders or something. The street that holds her dilapidated, ivy-choked mansion is even named after her family. _Ole Hanson Road_.

He lives a few blocks away and bikes past her home everyday. There’s an ancient yellow Volkswagen Beetle in the parking lot and even more ancient weeping willows in the front lawn. 

She’s on the steps, almost every inch of her body covered in billows of black fabric. Her throat is bare but she has a wide-brimmed sun hat hiding most of her face. 

Quentin imagines he can see the sweat drops on her collarbones and he gets caught up imaging them sliding down between her breasts. A spiral of cigarette smoke glides from her lips and he knows he’s staring but she’s not paying attention.

When there isn’t a cigarette in her mouth, she’s talking to no one. She’s quiet, just murmuring.

The screen door is closed but Quentin thinks maybe someone could be just inside the door. He’s only ever seen her, but there could be someone inside. She shifts on the porch and a slit in her skirt slides to reveal a long, tan thigh. Her feet are bare. 

When Quentin drags his eyes away from her legs, she’s staring at him. She has on an eyepatch. Her good eye is pinning him to the spot.

He starts violently, his bike tire stirring up gravel and she smirks at him. 

“Hi, Little Red,” she calls and moves to her feet. Her hat isn’t hiding her face at all anymore and Quentin can’t look away. She’s dangerously beautiful, like a tiger or an orca. “Won’t you come in?”

He doesn’t say anything, just sets foot to pedal and speeds off. He’s got a knot in his stomach and he doesn’t think it’s guilt at ogling her. She’s sent his lizard brain screaming. _Run, stupid. Run._


	2. Tequila and Lemonade

He goes back the next day. 

Of course he does. It’s a humid day, sweat sticks his shirt to his back and pedaling his bike feels like a Herculean effort. 

She’s waiting for him today. She’s pulled a wrought iron lawn set under the shade of the willow trees and there’s a pitcher of lemonade and two glasses. She’s wearing her signature swathes of black and this time her head is bare. She has a thick coil of dark hair tied in a knot on top of her head. 

He pulls to a stop in front of her yard and stares at her. She smiles with neat, white teeth and unwraps her shawl to reveal a delicate lace camisole. He can see the swell of her breasts clearly and understands fully he’s being lead. 

“Like a lamb to slaughter,” she says in the same breath and then she laughs when Quentin does a double take. “Come on, Little Red.”

“I forgot my hood,” he says, stupidly. Nevertheless, he climbs off his bike and lays it on its side. She watches him approach her and waits until he sits to pour him a drink. 

“The first time we noticed you, you had on a red shirt,” she says and Q pulls his feet up into the lawn chair so he’s a little less vulnerable. He knows she won’t eviscerate him, but the feeling of being exposed still rankles his nerves. 

“Who’s we?” He asks. “What do I call you?”

“He doesn’t want you to see him,” she giggles and pulls a bottle of tequila out of a fold of fabric. “Call me Margo. Miss Hanson if you’re nasty.”

He doesn’t say anything as she pours way too much booze into his lemonade. He tries not to look at her eyepatch. Is she hitting on him?

“I’d wreck you, Lil’ Red,” she says in a lilting tone and takes a shot straight from the bottle. 

“I think I could handle it,” Q says and takes a swig of his lemonade. He sputters on the harsh taste and there’s a pause before they both laugh. “Okay, maybe not.”

“Maybe one day, if you’re very good,” Margo says and the screen door snaps open. A goat stares Quentin in the eyes from the entryway. His eyes are too human and Quentin takes another drink. 

He doesn’t choke this time but he does have the feeling he’s in way over his head. Margo is...a little left of human and this goat is freaking him out. 

“I should go,” he says and she mock-pouts. 

“But you just got here,” Margo says and leans forward on the table. Her cleavage pushes on her camisole and the goat meanders down the stairs. “We think you’re fun.”

“I’ve got homework,” he says and stands. He stifles the urge to bow. “It was nice meeting you.”

Margo sits languidly in the lawn chair, eyes on him like lasers. He makes it all the way to his bike before he realizes something. 

“You never asked my name.”

She stands, wrapping her shawl around herself. A twist of dark hair slips from her knot and she tucks it away. 

“I know you, Curly Q. I know you better than anyone on this planet.”

He loses his thread of bravery and jumps on his bike then. He doesn’t realize how hard he’s pumping until he’s gone four blocks past his house and his heart is jolting in his chest. He lets the bike crash to the ground and tries to hold off an anxiety attack. 

His rational brain worries she’s following him, tapped his phone or something. How else would she know what his dad calls him?

The smarter, more shrewd part of him acknowledges the stranger answer. She knew it the same way she could finish his sentences. The same way she could anticipate his questions. 

There’s something intangible and magnificent about her. Her and that house. 

He climbs back on the bike and heads home. Tomorrow, he’ll go back tomorrow. He won’t be afraid. He’ll unravel what she’s hiding.


	3. The First Dream

_She’s floating._

_Everything’s blue and Margo is floating._

_Her hair is impossibly long, trailing in lazy spirals up far behind where Quentin’s eyes can see. A white dress clings to her body, he can see every part of body through it and he realizes they’re underwater._

_“I’m the daughter waiting for you,” she says through a water-drenched throat. Bubbles escape from her lips and he swims to her. The closer he gets, the wider her smile is._

_There’s something leaking from her eye. He touches it._

_Sand._

_She’s crying sand. There’s a trail from under her eyepatch as well._

_Quentin holds her face, breathing in the mineral-rich water around them. He can taste the earth as he inhales._

_“He’s the rebel,” Margo says in a string of bubbles. There’s a dark shape behind Margo in the water. Quentin can’t tell what it is. Margo is still crying sand._

_Her patch is white like her gown. He reaches for it and she shakes her head._

_”He’s the rebel,” she says again, fervently. He reaches for it again and she lets him._

_He lifts the patch and—_

Quentin jerks awake, sweat drenching his hair and stinging his eyes. He’s panting, rock hard in his pajama bottoms. He thinks he can see a woman in the middle of his room for a split second but he blinks and the form is gone. 

He lays back and listens to the chorus of crickets until he falls asleep.


	4. A Realization

Quentin spends the next day in a fugue state, drifting between classes. He’s caught in the dream still. 

Her tower of hair, her dress pale against her skin, and that dark figure floating behind her. 

She’s something else. She’s not human. Or at least, not totally human. She feels aged, old like her house. But her face is as young as his, maybe younger. 

A pit of nerves begins forming in his stomach and he makes his way to the library on his free period. He pulls several books, all about the founding families of Harlow’s Harbour.

The name Hanson is sprinkled in the books, they owned a coal mine in town and funded the opening of the local hospital. The coal mine closed down in the 1850’s and shortly after the patriarch of the Hanson’s passed away. 

_George Hanson was survived by his wife, Ines, and daughter, Margaux. The funeral will be held at Rose of Saint Paul Catholic Church._

The two went back to France, Ines Hanson’s home country, a little less than a year after the funeral and the Hanson House was deemed a historical location. That was the official record. 

There’s a grainy photo in the book. A portrait of a stern man with his arm around a frail, dark haired woman and a young girl. Through the baby fat and poor photo quality, Quentin can pick out the doe eyes and full lips of his Margo. The date on the photo has him pinching the bridge of his nose and leaning back in his chair.

He is sliding into madness and helpless to turn away. He’s not sure he would if he was able. 

_September, 1843._

Margo is over a hundred years old. His mind races with theories. Vampires, a fountain of eternal youth, maybe a family curse. 

He makes copies of it all and leafs through it on his way to lunch. He settles into his normal spot under a tree, pulling out a tepid egg salad sandwich. His mind curls around and over and in on itself, mulling over the puzzle of what he’s stumbled upon. 

He’s midway through his sandwich when a bird lands with a thump before him. It’s a giant raven, watching him with strange eyes. It’s feathers gleam like oil slick and it hops closer to him. 

The nervous, sweaty feeling returns to him and he knows that this raven is mixed in with Margo. He offers it a piece of his bread and it snaps it from him. 

It gobbles it up in quick, jerking motions and edges even closer to him. He holds out a hand, he wants to pet it. It tilts its’ head closer, eyeing him with a blue and green marbled eye. 

It bites him. 

A quick nip and blood dribbles from the wound. It caws like laughter and takes off in a small gust of wind. 

He sticks his finger in his mouth before he can think and the salt of blood fills his mouth. 

He spits and there’s a small red puddle on the ground beside him. His finger is still bleeding and he wraps it in a napkin from his lunch bag. Quentin wraps his arms around his legs, rests his chin on his knees and looks at the horizon. 

There’s a storm brewing. The air is hot and charged. He’s on his feet before he knows what’s happening, running for the bike rack at the front of the school. 

No one stops him. Juniors are allowed to leave campus at lunch time and he pedals out of the parking lot. 

He feels like he’s racing the storm, maybe even being shepherded by it. It chews at the air behind him, he can hear thunder in the distance. He turns on Ole Hanson Road as the rain catches up and it lets loose like a flood. He’s soaked halfway up the road and he can see Margo’s house, faded and covered in ivy. 

She’s in the front yard with only a black silk slip on. Her feet are bare in the dirt and her hair is long and loose, whipping in the wind. She has her arms outstretched to him and she’s laughing. 

As soon as she spots him, she yells something he can’t hear over the storm. 

“I told you,” she cries when he’s closer and the raven from before flits down to land on her shoulder. “I told you he’d come.”

The raven stares at him through those funny eyes as he pulls to a stop before her. 

“You’re ready,” she says and gestures for him to come to get. The line between the overgrown grass and the gravel road seems to reverberate with energy as he approaches it. He feels a heartbeat in the invisible border, like it’s alive. “You’re ready.”

He crosses into her yard.


	5. A Gift is Given

Margo grabs his hand when he crosses the threshold and as soon as their fingers touch, the rain cuts off abruptly. The silence is deafening and they stand in the mud for a long moment, just looking at each other. The raven makes a deep croaking noise.

“Did you make that storm? All the rain?” He asks, she lifts a shoulder and smiles.

“When a true secret is revealed, the world takes notice,” she says and leads him to the porch. The raven flies ahead of them and into an open window on the third floor.

She leaves small, neat mud prints on the porch and rivulets of rain trickle down her shoulders and arms. Before they enter, she makes a quick series of motions with her hands and a puff of warm air lifts Quentin’s shirt and hair. Her own hair flutters gracefully around her shoulders and he realizes dumbly that they’re both completely dry. 

Another flick of her fingers and her feet are clean of mud. She leans against the screen door, smiling coyly up at him. 

“What if we never let you leave? We want to keep you,” she says and Quentin can barely hear her. She’s not hiding anything anymore but it makes things even less clear. “I’m so glad you finally came.”

“What?” He asks and sounds stupid to himself. 

She laughs, turning to open the screen door. He takes a big breath and walks into the hallway. 

“What the fuck,” he breathes. He turns to her,” What the fuck?”

“Magic,” she whispers and wiggles her fingers in his face. “Magic, Curly Q.”

“How old are you?”

She smiles like a Cheshire Cat and slinks down the hall. It’s nearly as decrepit as the outside with spider webs and dust clotting the hallway. It has a once-grand Indian rug down the length of it and tarnished silver fixings. 

She leads him into the drawing room and settles onto an ancient, wood-backed settee. He follows her, helplessly, and stands before her. There’s a heavy feeling in the air and Quentin feels like anything he says needs to be powerful, meaningful, memorable. 

“Ah...um--”, is what comes out and he flicks his hands a few times. “Why me?”

A snap of her fingers and a book flies to her lap. It’s leatherbound. It has an ornate ‘M’ inscribed on the front. A journal, he realizes.

“Sit ,” she says with a quick motion of her hand and a paisley, wingback chair flies into the back of his knees. He falls into it with a puff of dust. “I’m not some dull, boring girl you can demand answers from. I will tell you what you need to know when I feel you should know it.”

There’s a heavy feeling in his stomach, like realizing you've made a grievous error. He’s in the den of a lion, his stomach bared. He can see the stiff peaks of her breasts through her silk shift. She levels her eye at him and pulls the journal to her stomach.

“I am so much more than you can understand now,” she says. “I am what happens when something is taken-- violently. Relentlessly. Make no mistake, Quentin Coldwater. I am no soft doll. I am not a pretty thing. I am rectification incarnate.”


	6. A Revelation and a Promise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is implied incest and sexual abuse. It is not graphic but could be upsetting.

Dust motes twinkle in the sun around them, landing on Margo’s dusky bare skin and her waves of hair. She holds the journal to her chest, almost lovingly, then brandishes it to Quentin like a weapon. 

“Take it,” she snaps when he hesitates. He does and she stands. “I’m going to change. I’ll be back.”

In a blink, she’s gone. He’s alone with her journal in this rotting room. Something moves in the corner of his eye and he turns with a jump. 

His heart pounds in his ears and he flattens a hand over his chest. The creature is back. It’s a cat now, silken black with those human eyes. It saunters to him, eyes wide and unblinking. It bounds up on the arm of his chair and they regard each other. The cat glances at the book with purpose. 

He opens the small journal without any further ceremony. An unseen force flips through the pages, landing with purpose on a page two-thirds through. 

_August 16, 1843. He came for me again last night. I was ill-prepared and did not expect him again so soon. I do not know how much more my heart can bear. I am lost in the bitterness._

He runs his fingers over the page, over the tear stains. 

The cat makes a small noise and he looks up, then double takes. He’s not in the sitting room anymore. He and the cat are in a hallway, still on the paisley chair. The hallway seems to spiral away from them, the shadows thrown from the candles contort and dance like monsters. Quentin is sweating. There is a ridge of fur on the cat’s back and the beast is growling, low in it’s chest. 

There’s a door at the end of the hall. It’s clean, white, pristine. It nearly glows in the darkness. 

There’s a rustling behind them and a man moves through them, through the chair. He turns to look over his shoulder, through Quentin and a spark of knowledge ignites. It’s the same man from the picture, George Hanson. 

He pulls a brass key from his dressing gown, fits it in the lock on the white door. It opens with a shrill creak.

Dread floods Quentin’s gut and he understands. Oh, God. He understands. He can’t watch this. He can’t hear this. He flings the journal at George Hanson, desperate to end this.

The cat is yowling now, screaming into the flickering light of the hallway. The fear is palpable, the walls are slick with moisture and filth. 

“Père,” a wavering, young voice says. “Bonsoir.”

“I told you to speak English in this house,” George Hanson says. His voice is booming, deafening in this place lost in time. In the space between the door and George’s body, Quentin can see the thin, coltish legs of Margo on the bed. 

“I’m sorry, father,” she says. “Good evening.”

“S’better,” the monster says and steps into the room, revealing a small, soft Margo. 

“Where is mè--,” she catches herself, “--mother?”

“Asleep,” he says and Quentin watches the muscles around her mouth tighten. Her brows draw together. There’s a the sheen of unspilled tears in her two dark eyes and he feels vomit surge in his esophagus. 

He closes his eyes and feels the puke spill into his lap. When he opens them, Margo is before him and he’s back in the drawing room. 

She's opulent, in a flowing gown of black crushed velvet. A silver fox stole is draped over her shoulders and it’s taxidermied head rests on her breasts. Her hair is loose, wild and tangled in knots down to her waist. Her feet, he notices, are still bare. 

“Clean yourself up,” she says, not unkindly. The cat is gone. He stands. 

“Where’s the nearest sink?”

“Not like that,” she says and takes his hands. She folds his fingers and cranks his wrists and he watches the vomit drift off his lap. “Excellent.”

It evaporates into nothing, taking the acrid smell of bile with it. He stares at his hands in wonder, amazed that he did anything even close to what she can. 

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” spills from his lips and her hands still on his. Thick, grey claws creep from her nail beds, digging into Quentin’s hands and her hair slides into a curtain around her face. It slithers like eels against her skin. The fur stole sucks in a dry breath and Quentin cries out in fear. 

“I do not accept your apology,” she says in a deep, rasping growl. “You owe me none, I will take none.” 

The claws recede, and her hair stills and she blinks up at him. The cat twines around their legs and she leans her head against his chest. 

The fierceness is gone, replaced by a brittleness Quentin would never have though Margo capable of having. He pulls her in closer, presses his chin to her head, and she lets him.

“I am here for revenge,” she whispers into his sternum. “I’m here to turn their daughters into raging stars and their sons into gentle beasts. I will look them each in the face and judge their heart against mine. I will tear this town apart to save it. Harlow’s Harbour birthed me, raised me, killed me. I will cleanse it.”

The sound of their breathing fills the room and she pulls away to look at him with her fathomless eye. 

“I need you, Quentin. You are the bullet in my gun. You are the blade of my sword. Join us in the purification,” she says and the fox stole on her shoulders sucks in a dry, rattling breath. 

Her eye meets his, unflinching. The fox grows eyes and teeth around her neck and it’s organs return with a wet, pulsing sound. She reaches for his face, rubs a thumb over his lips. The fox lifts its head and a pink tongue lolls out, it scents the air. 

“Anything you need,” Quentin breathes and the fox braces its feet on her chest. “I’m yours.”

It leaps from her shoulders, landing clumsily on the ground. It vomits a clear fluid that reeks of formaldehyde and runs into the hall. The screen door slams open and closes. The fox is gone.


	7. A Meeting

The house blossoms in the night, glowing and pulsing and shimmering. Dust fades, the wallpaper clears and gleams in the candlelight. 

From the outside, the house would appear to have every light on. But in truth, that glow is Margo’s magic, sated and powerful with Quentin’s presence. She’s on the sette in the sitting room, it’s now a rich and soft velvet, twirling her fingers in lazy loops. The Hanson house creaks and complains as it’s wood is rejuvenated and the mildew is burned out. 

He sits in the wing back chair across from her, legs pulled up and his fingers crossed in his lap. He watches the freshly polished candlesticks vibrate on the mantle of a now-roaring fire. 

Margo herself looks more vibrant, her skin is no longer dull and her hair reflects candle light. Her eye is bright and dancing when it meets Quentin’s and she cocks her head. 

“I don’t know why he won’t meet you,” she says and the cat hops up on the sette to peer at him. “He’s never this shy.”

Quentin shrugs, unsure himself, and tries not to take it personally. 

The cat stares at him through blank, cold eyes and Quentin thinks it’s as close to smirking as it can be. 

“We are going to do terrifying, wonderful, exciting things,” Margo says as the Indian rugs beneath them become glossy. She smiles down at them and with another motion, the windows heavy brocade curtains deepen in color and rustle off dust. “Are you excited?”

“I guess so,” Quentin says and chews on his nail bed. “I’m ready to do what you need. But I don’t know what that is.”

“You being here is already a gift,” Margo says. “Can’t you feel the power you’ve given me?”

He can. It echoes through the house, sending ripples of energy to each dank corner. He nods and she rises, her velvet dress settles over her bare feet. 

“Come,” she says and holds out a slender, golden hand. “To the belly of the beast.”

She guides him up the stairs, through several hallways, and they finally reach the hallway from the memory. The door isn’t pristinely white anymore, it’s covered in lichen and moss. Vines drizzle from the top of the door and small white flowers bloom sporadically across its face. 

It looks out of place in this ornate hallway and it should seem dirty or dark but it’s not. It looks vibrant, warm and alive. Margo opens the door with a flick of her wrist, pushes through the hanging vines and Quentin follows her. 

There’s a carpet of moss on the ground, patches of daffodils and pillows of forget-me-nots. The bed is white, the linens clean and there’s a circle of roses sprouting from the center of it. They’re vibrantly red, lush and soft. 

The room is an oasis, healthy and growing strong. 

“You see? I am not bitter,” she says and runs her fingers over the delicate branches of a sapling jutting through the floorboard. “I am resolute, steadfast. I am the execution, not the judgement.”

“I know,” Quentin says and she pins him with a look. “I do.”

“Not yet,” she replies, crossing the room to him. “But you will.”

She brushes past him, disappears through the vines and he’s left alone in this room. 

He sits on the soft moss and ponders the things he’s been shown. He curls his arms around his knees, rests his forehead on them. The last few days tick through his head, confusing and amazing and so unexpected. 

He hears someone clear their throat in the doorway and he looks up to see a tall, languid man. He’s absolutely naked, tangled in the green vines. His hair falls in wild curls on his forehead from between two twisting horns and those strange eyes flash in the din of the bedroom. 

“You’ve made a mistake,” he drawls and Quentin ignores his nudity in favor of finding answers. “She’s not going to save anyone.”

“Are you saying she’s lying?”

“No,” the man says. He examines the wicked nails curling out of his fingertips. “But imagine a flame on a candle. When it falls upon hay, does it consider the consequences? Does it hold discretion for the bits of straw? No. It consumes.”

“I promised her,” Quentin says and the man—no, the creature— licks sharp teeth.

“As did I,” it says. “And I am bound to her for it.”

It drops to a crouch suddenly, closer than Quentin thinks he could be. It peers at Quentin like an owl, cocking its head. Up close, the creature is even less human. It’s flesh is smooth like glass, poreless and there are faint veins winding around its eyes and up its throat. 

“What do I call you?”

“El...iot…,” it says slowly, rustily. “I will be known as Eliot.”

“What are you?”

“An old beast,” Eliot says. “Older than her. I was a raven when she called me. So much pain. But under it, strength. What’s under your pain?”

Quentin doesn’t know the answer, so he says nothing. Eliot nods, like he expected it. He stands, makes to leave but pauses in the doorway. 

“She loves you,” Eliot says. “For whatever reason, she loves you fiercely. I hope you deserve it.”

Quentin sits in that room, amid the flowers and hopes the same.


End file.
